


Point of Views

by imbellarosa



Series: Where You're At [1]
Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Gen, I'm so sorry, So yeah, and i kinda love that, and then he must've changed, because i think at some point he was exactly who penny said he was, been a better person, this is about the one random librarian from last week, this literally has none of our favs in it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-14
Updated: 2019-03-14
Packaged: 2019-11-17 18:42:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18104204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imbellarosa/pseuds/imbellarosa
Summary: "Let's jump ahead to that moment of epiphany/ in gold light, as the camera pans to where/ the action is"He has been shelving books for a long time. He isn't always who he is now.





	Point of Views

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! I'm back with this small plot bunny (do we still call them that? did i just date myself??). I promise I'll come back with something more...relevant soon, but I liked the idea of someone learning how to be better because of the stories they read and the characters they met. Kind of like all of us.

He had died in the Crusades - arrow to the side. Well, when he crossed over, he was offered a choice: he could either go to the Underworld, or he could work with the Underworld branch of The Library. Apparently, they had been impressed with the endless afternoons he had spent in the Church library as a boy.  _ Not particularly religious,  _ the man who took him had mused,  _ but searching for knowledge nonetheless _ . 

The truth, he would find out later is that the crusades had left them with too many stories and too little staff. He seemed like as good a choice as any. And he was, as it turned out- he was an avid reader, and he began to devour stories like a starving man at a feast. At first, it was difficult. He read and did not understand. 

He had joined the crusades looking for glory and adventures. He had read enough stories to know that people had to go out in search for their destiny, and they had promised him a spot in God’s Kingdom if he joined. So, in life, he was a knight, and a poor one at that. Having never really had a proper meal, he hadn’t had the strength to carry the sword well, and not having had much money, he was marching rather than riding horses from one place to the next. 

He hadn’t even died heroically. They had been ambushed. Wrong place, wrong time. Or, if you think about it, right place, right time. 

This is all to say, he didn’t spend much time contemplating the diversity of life. He knew what the right way to live was, and he stuck to it. Hell, he had died for it. It had been quite a shock when the Library told him that his side had been the bad guys, as it were, and that the Moors had been making phenomenal advances in science and medicine, the likes of which wouldn’t be seen for another few hundred years or so. 

_ Men _ , one of the women had sighed good-humoredly,  _ never really seeing what’s in front of them _ . 

_ I demand to speak to the King _ , he had ordered, meeting her eyes.  _ You are not allowed to speak to me in such a manner _ .

Her eyes had flashed,  _ there is spirit in you, then, misguided though it be. Very well. Time for class _ .

He had ended up in a room with millions of stories told to read every single one.  _ Don’t come out until you’re done. You’ll find what you need here. _

For a while, he read robotically; romance, tragedy, trauma, deep joy and deep sadness melding together as he read the lives of great heroes and small people, who were, in their own ways great. He read of those who were lonely and of those who were alone. And none of them seemed to stay. He does not think he could name any of the people whose book he read that first half-century or so. 

And then there was this woman. She was not extraordinary in a way that the world would remember. But she survived a childhood that would have broken him, and she had taught herself how to read. And then she turned around and taught her younger sister to read. And then they taught the neighbor’s daughter. And so on, until most of the woman in the village could read. 

The woman would die surrounded by family. She had touched all of the generations that came next in the village. One of the little girls, the one with the big eyes and small smile, she had visited the woman when she was old, and she had learned to read by the woman’s hearth, and had kept that joy in her own heart until she died. That little girl was his own mother. And so he cries.

When he finishes all of the novels, he understands that he has been given a gift. He begins to put them all in their place, somehow knowing exactly where they belong. No one says anything. One day, he looks up, and the world has changed. The crusades were heroic, people say. They produced heroes and those who died sit on the right side of the saints.

He weeps. The next day, he is promoted. 

This is all to say, he has had many failures in his life, all of them well-meaning, and many of them fatal. He misses the people he could have loved. He’s read his book; he knows that he was always meant to die the way he did. Although, sometimes he wonders if there’s anything he (or anyone) could have done to change it. 

And then, all those millenia later, someone does change their book. Quietly, they fall out of love with “the One”, and they throw the tennis ball without a second thought, and they jump in front of a monster to save a friend, and somehow, that’s all it takes. They live. 

The Traveler is moving up the ranks of the library; he’s kinder now, softer, and he knows the true meaning of the books. After all, the books down here didn’t change when Alice changed them upstairs. It takes more than a bit of magic to fool the afterlife. Ah, well, he smiles.

It isn’t that he doesn’t care, it’s that she’s right. The library had been started as a way to gather and protect knowledge, but it had become protective of it, and violent in the face of peace and opportunity for growth. He had seen it too many times. But he had read Zelda’s book. They would learn. 

A Hedge would teach them, and if that wasn’t irony, he didn’t know what was. He loved the little twists and turns of life. The truth is, he didn’t know who wrote the books. He didn’t know where the knowledge comes from, but he always enjoyed the poetic justice of them. 

A woman becomes a witch becomes a victim becomes a goddess. And somewhere in this transition, she learns how to be a human. She breaks and she puts herself back together piece by piece and he doesn’t know how she does it. All he knows is that he would not be able to do so. 

And so, when it is time to promote the Traveler, and he is tapped for the job, he gives a small smile, and grabs one of his favorite book, and shelves it wrong. He’s sure that he’s going to get a request for a meeting soon enough. 

**Author's Note:**

> if you liked it, PLEASE LET ME KNOW!! I love getting comments, and please come say hi to me at imbellarosa.tumblr.com!


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